Long Day’s Journey

So we set out on our travels this morning at 4 am. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 6 am and we wanted to have plenty of time to get through security. We tumbled the kids into the car, threw the bags in on top of them and off we went. The airport was not real crowded at that hour so everything went pretty smoothly. All our checked bags disappeared into the bowels of the airport machine while we crossed our fingers and hoped we'd see them at the other end of the flight.

We were flying Delta, so naturally, that necessitated a plane change in Atlanta, not my all time favorite, but not the worst I have ever been to, either. (That would be Logan in Boston.) The flight was good, very smooth with good weather all the way. The layover wasn't too awfully long but did involve a trek from one end of the airport to another. That appears to be an unwritten rule whenever I fly anywhere. Any transfer will entail marathon-level distances.

But we did not really have enough time to eat, and the short hop down to Orlando served a single teeny bag of peanuts – but hey, they served peanuts. I haven't seen those for quite a while. We waited and waited for our bags at the claim area. It was beginning to look like the crossed fingers hadn't worked when they finally appeared.

Then it was a trek through the Orlando airport to the place where the cruise line had their bus service. That unwritten rule again. Check in at the counter, go through the checklist they rattled off with the speed of long practice. Passports, check, entry cards, check, luggage tags, check. Then we sat down to wait for the bus. And it was a long wait. We'd landed around noon and finally left for the ship at around 2 pm. We still had not eaten.

Fairly quick trip over to Port Canaveral then the process of boarding. Another check-in process, a very well-practiced staff making it all move very smoothly. Cabin not ready to check into yet, so finally a chance to go up to the buffet and get some food. This was a mob scene. Apparently a lot of people had arrived at around the same time and none of them had eaten either.

Wade through all that mass of hungry people and get some much-needed food. Then the announcement that the mandatory lifeboat drill would commence in 30 minutes. So off to try to find the cabin since we needed life jackets. This entailed wandering aimlessly around discovering that elevators on the ship never, ever went where you needed to go. Seriously. There are double-secret elevators that stop only on random floors. For example some folks needed to get off on level 6. But the elevator did not have a button for 6. (We saw several people get caught by this one. Those of us amused by this stopped laughing when we found there was also no level 2 where we were heading.)

Finally, we arrived at the cabin, inserted the key and viewed our spacious new abode for the next few days. And it was smaller than our bathroom back at home. This is going to be challenging. We're going to have to coordinate breathing carefully. If we all inhale at once, the place will implode.

I've also found the WiFi hotspot and found that the advertised “nominal” internet is exorbitant, So I'll be making fewer posts than I would like for this week.

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  By skh.pcola, Tuesday, 22 May , 2007 @ 1:52 pm

  Free advice: Skip the lifeboat drill. It takes forever and it an almost-complete waste of time.

  I know a lot of people who don’t like cruises, but I think they are one of the least expensive vacation options around.

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